JP2009163526A - Service information management method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce expenses for change handling at store without burdening customers with card managing, and to provide secure management method for personal authentication information at a store which unspecified number of customers visits. <P>SOLUTION: The store system includes a means to input a customers' biometric information; a means to convert inputted biometric information into characteristic quantities; a means to identify customers linked with identification information by storing customers' identification information and selecting an identification information which corresponds to inputted characteristic quantities; and a means to manage customers' accounts. Furthermore, the authentication information management center system includes a means of generating Voronoi diagram for each store by classifying collected customers' characteristic quantities using store system for each store, and a means to manage a pair of customer identifier and a Voronoi polygon, partly extracted from the Voronoi diagram as an identification information of Voronoi diagram. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique for authenticating a user or service information related to the user. In particular, the present invention relates to a technique for performing authentication in order to manage information related to change in a store as service information. The authentication includes using biometric information.

  Normally, when shopping at a store, if the customer pays an amount that is equal to or greater than the product price, the customer pays the change obtained by subtracting the product price from the payment amount. However, delivery of small changes is inconvenient for customers and stores. Customers have to carry small coins that are bulky and bulky.

The store must always prepare many kinds of coins for change. Coins for change prepared at the time of opening are said to average 30% to 40% of sales. In addition, there are many stores that use a change delivery service, and there is a problem that a change handling cost is required.
On the other hand, there is a system that uses a customer's card to convert the amount of change paid into a number of points, adds it to a conventional discount point, and records it as a cumulative point on the card. The features of this system are (1) converting the amount of change paid into points and adding it to the total number of points on the card, and (2) magnetically recording the number of remaining points, The total number of points is printed by printing means such as dot printing. An example of this is Patent Document 1.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 05-143836

  In the background art described above, since it is assumed that a point card is used, it is necessary to issue a physical card.

  On the other hand, as a trend that is prominently seen in credit cards, services that give points to the use of cards have been widespread so that customers always carry their own cards. For other types of cards, it is considered necessary to give similar benefits in order for customers to always carry them.

  In other words, the change management method using a card is considered to be practical because it requires a small additional cost if it is combined with a point card, but is difficult to introduce as a single card.

  Moreover, since the change management method using a card is based on the premise that the customer has the card, the customer who has placed the card at home cannot use it. Moreover, the customer is requested to be able to manage his / her card safely, and for example, the use of children is not assumed.

  In addition, these issues exist in services other than change. That is, there is a problem that it takes time and effort to confirm the service information (and / or the user) in order to receive the service at the locations where the service information related to the service available to the user (customer) is scattered. Exists.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a technique for solving these problems, more easily authenticating service information and the like, and enabling appropriate provision of services.

  Note that the object of the present invention includes a viewpoint of suppressing expenses related to the handling of the change in the store without placing a burden on the card management on the customer. Furthermore, when using a personal authentication method using biometric information at a store where a large number of unspecified people come and go, providing a safe method for managing personal authentication information is also included in the above object.

  In order to achieve the above object, in the present invention, authentication information used for user authentication is converted into predetermined identification information corresponding to service information, held for each use site, and provided or received at each site. According to the change of service, the identification information held corresponding to the base is changed according to the content of the change. Here, as this identification information, several points are arranged on a plane. At this time, the use of Voronoi diagram information indicating the position on the Voronoi diagram, which is a diagram that can be divided according to which point is closest to the point in the plane, is included.

Furthermore, as an application example of the service, management of change in a plurality of stores is included. As specific contents of this application example, the following aspects are also included in the present invention.
Means for inputting biometric information of the customer into the store system, means for converting the inputted biometric information into feature quantities (average value of N characteristic components), customer identification information (vertex coordinates of Voronoi polygons) ), A means for selecting the identification information to which the inputted feature value belongs and specifying the customer associated with the identification information, and a means for managing the customer's account (savings box). In addition, the means for managing the customer's account is to add change to the balance of the corresponding account when depositing change, and to compare the balance between the product price and the corresponding account when paying the product price from the account, If the balance is more than the product price, the product price is subtracted from the balance, and if the balance is less than the product price, the store employee or customer is notified that the balance is insufficient.

  In addition, the authentication information management center system (hereinafter abbreviated as “center”) separates the store system transaction information uploading means, the transaction information backup means, and the customer features collected by the store system for each store. Then, a means for generating a Voronoi diagram for each store and a means for managing a set of Voronoi polygons obtained by cutting out a part of the Voronoi diagram as a set of identification information and a customer identifier (store customer ID) are provided.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a technique that allows a service at a plurality of sites to be received (provided) more easily.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing an embodiment of a system to which the present invention is applied.

  In the store system 110, a reading unit 111 for inputting customer biometric information, an input unit 112 for inputting customer information, a feature amount is calculated from the input biometric information, and account management of the identified customer is performed. Computing unit 113, display unit 114 for displaying account balances associated with transactions in stores, storage unit 115 for storing customer identification information and account balances, transaction information in store systems and customer A communication unit 116 for exchanging identification information with the center is provided.

Further, in the authentication information management center system 100, the communication unit 103 for exchanging transaction information and the like of the store system and the customer feature amount collected by the store system are classified for each store, and a Voronoi diagram is generated for each store. And a storage unit 101 for managing customer identification information and the like.
The above devices are connected via a network 120 such as the Internet, a public network, and a dedicated network.

  FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a table structure of a database managed by the storage unit 101 of the center system 100. As shown in FIG.

  The storage unit 101 includes a customer management table 200 for managing customers of each store and customer account numbers (account IDs), and a balance management table 210 for managing balances of accounts linked to the account IDs. In addition, a biometric information management table 220 for managing feature quantities required for identifying customers and a transaction history management table 230 for managing customer transaction histories in stores are stored.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a table structure of a database managed by the storage unit 115 of the store system 110.
The storage unit 115 includes a store customer ID 302 that is an identifier of a customer who uses the designated store, a member management table (for store) 300 for managing a piggy bank ID 301 corresponding to the customer's account number, and a piggy bank Balance management table (for store) 310 for managing the balance of the account associated with the ID, biometric information management table (for store) 320 for managing the identification information of the customer of the store, and in a specific store A transaction history management table (for stores) 330 for managing customer transactions is stored.

  The store customer ID 302 is a unique identification number assigned to each customer for each store. The store customer ID 302 may be any information that can identify each customer, and may not be a number. On the other hand, a piggy bank ID corresponds to an account number for managing change. For example, if a family shares a single piggy bank ID, multiple store customer IDs correspond to the same piggy bank ID. Attached.

  The identification information 322 of the biometric information management table (for the store) 320 is information for identifying the customer of the store, and will be described in detail later with reference to FIG. 7, but the vertex coordinate sequence constituting the Voronoi polygon corresponding to the customer is shown in FIG. Record.

  2 is a data table in which the member management tables (for stores) 300 in a plurality of stores are integrated, and a unique member number 201 is assigned to the set of the store ID 202 and the store customer ID 203. ing. In the account ID 204, a unique identification number is assigned to the set of the store ID 202 and the savings box ID 301.

  The member management table 200, the balance management table 210, and the transaction history management table 230 are a member management table (for store) 300, a balance management table (for store) 310, and a transaction history management table (for store) 330 of the store system 110. The information uploaded via the network 120 is organized for the purpose of backing up the data.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the flow of change deposit processing in the store system 110.

  The reading unit 111 of the store system 110 is, for example, a finger vein authentication device, and the calculation unit 113 accepts an image of a finger vein pattern obtained by transmitting near infrared light through a finger as input data in step 401.

  Next, in step 402, feature amounts are extracted from the input image data. Details of the feature amount extraction processing will be described in detail with reference to FIG. Note that the image data may be used as it is instead of the feature amount, or the image data that has been processed according to a specific rule may be used.

  Registered feature amount (hereinafter referred to as feature amount 1) and the feature amount obtained from the means for inputting the biometric information (hereinafter referred to as feature amount 2) for the second and subsequent use. Feature amount 1 is read from the biometric information management table (for store) 320.

  Next, in step 404, if the difference between the feature quantity 1 and the feature quantity 2 is within the threshold, it is determined that the same person belongs, and the store customer ID 321 associated with the feature quantity 1 is specified. Here, for the sake of easy understanding, the difference between the feature quantity 1 and the feature quantity 2 falls within the threshold as a criterion for determining whether or not the identification information matches. However, the present invention is not limited to this.

  For example, a Voronoi diagram is constructed by providing means for plotting feature quantities extracted from biological information of customers of a specified store as points on a two-dimensional plane and means for creating a Voronoi diagram using a plurality of plotted points. The Voronoi polygon to be registered is registered as the feature amount 1. When performing personal authentication, the feature quantity 2 obtained from the means for inputting biometric information is plotted as a point on a two-dimensional plane, and the Voronoi polygon that contains this point is specified to identify the feature quantity 2 and The feature amount 1 that can be determined to be the same and the store customer ID 321 associated with the feature amount 1 can be specified.

  If it is determined in step 404 that the identification information matches, the process moves to step 405, and the savings box ID 301 associated with the store customer ID is specified using the member management table (for store) 300.

  In step 406, using the balance management table (for store) 310, the amount data of the change generated by the new purchase is added to the balance 312 associated with the savings box ID 311. In addition, the transaction history related to the deposit to the savings box ID is recorded in the transaction history management table (for store) 330.

  Since the store customer ID 302 does not exist at the first use, a new store customer ID and a savings box ID 311 associated therewith are set, and the storage area of the balance 312 associated with this savings box ID 311 Record the change amount data generated by the purchase.

  On the other hand, FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the flow of change change processing in the store system 110.

  Steps 501, 502, 503, 504, and 505 in FIG. 5 are the same as steps 401, 402, 403, 404, and 405 in FIG.

  If the purchase amount is desired to be settled using the balance 312 of the savings box ID associated with the purchaser for the second and subsequent uses, in step 506, the balance data is compared with the purchase amount of the product, and the amount data Is greater than the purchase amount, the process proceeds to step 507, where the purchase amount is deducted from the balance data, and the transaction history relating to the transaction is recorded in the transaction history management table (store) 330 in step 508. If the balance data is smaller than the purchase amount, in step 509, a message notifying the balance shortage is sent to the display unit 114.

  FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing a flow of processing for creating a feature amount from biometric information in the store system 110.

  The reading unit 111 of the store system 110 is, for example, a finger vein authentication device, and accepts an image of a finger vein pattern obtained by transmitting near infrared light through a finger as input data in step 601 (same as step 401 in FIG. 4). ).

  Since the input data is image data, edge extraction image processing is performed in step 602. Since edge extraction is a general image processing, the details are omitted. However, it is highly likely that the location where the brightness in the image changes abruptly is the outline of the object. Calculate the edge.

  The change in brightness can be calculated by using a differential operation. A typical edge detection process is Laplacian (second derivative).

  Next, in step 603, line segment detection by Hough transform is performed on the edge extracted image.

  The detection algorithm of the straight line component by the normal Hough transform is as follows.

Step 1: For the edge point Pi = (xi, yi) in the given image, the value of ρ is calculated by Equation 1.
ρ = (xi) cosθ + (yi) sinθ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ (Equation 1)
Calculation is performed using θ as a sweep parameter, voting is performed on a two-dimensional array having θ-ρ as two axes, and this process is repeated for the number of edge points.

Step 2: From the two-dimensional array having θ-ρ as two axes, select N arrays having a high vote count from those having a large number of votes.
Step3: When Equation 2 is calculated from N pairs (θj, ρj) (j = 1,2,3, ..., N), the equations of the top N straight lines are evaluated based on the line-likeness. Is derived. See Reference 1 ("High-Speed Line Detection Method Using Hough Transform in Local Area" IEICE Transactions D-II Vol.J83-D-II No.3 pp.918-926 March 2000).
ρj = (x) cosθj + (y) sinθj (2)
Next, in Step 604, the coordinates of the barycentric point of the set of N points (θj, ρj) (j = 1, 2, 3,..., N) selected in Step 2 are calculated by Equation 3. .
(Ρ, θ) = (Σρj / N, Σθj / N) (Equation 3)
In addition, N line segments (N points in the θ-ρ plane) are extracted as feature values of the biological information, and here, the centroids of the N points in the θ-ρ plane are used as representative points. However, the representative point calculation method is not limited to this.

  In step 605, when the customer uses the store for the first time, the store customer ID, which is a unique number in the store, and the representative point calculated in step 604 are managed as a set, and finally the biometric information of the center Record in the management table.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram (700) and an explanatory diagram of a management table (320) for explaining a process of creating a Voronoi polygon as identification information in the center system 100.
The explanatory diagram 700 corresponds to the θ-ρ plane in the description of FIG.
For example, when the representative point corresponding to Mr. A's biometric information is expressed as P1 (x1, y1), B's as P2 (x2, y2), and C's as P3 (x3, y3) A Voronoi diagram shown at 700 can be created. The method for creating the Voronoi diagram is described in, for example, published document 3, but the line segment that separates the areas of point P1 and point P2 is expressed by a perpendicular bisector connecting the point P1 and point P2. If the same processing is performed at the point P1 and other points, the region 1 (701) can be created.
Region 1 is a Voronoi polygon whose apexes are P0, P5, P4, and P6.

  This is disclosed in detail in Document 2 ("Series: Mathematical Mathematical 3: Optimum Arrangement", published by Asakura Shoten Co., Ltd. Atsuyuki Okabe and Ikuo Suzuki (ISBN4-254-12606-9)).

  In this way, by creating a Voronoi diagram, a closed region including one representative point can be defined. Since the Voronoi polygon includes only one point, this closed region can be used as customer identification information.

  A biometric information management table (for a store) 320 in FIG. 7 shows a table that manages a store customer ID unique in the store and the identification information (vertices forming a Voronoi polygon) in pairs. When points in the θ-ρ plane are given as feature quantities calculated from the biometric information of the customer, region 1 (P0, P5, P4, P6), region 2 (P5, Pb, Pa, P7, P4) and region 3 (P6, P4, P7, Pc) can be identified to identify whether the customer is Mr. A, Mr. B, or Mr. C. it can.

  Note that the Voronoi polygon constituting the Voronoi diagram includes only one point called a generating point, and the Voronoi polygon corresponds to the power sphere of the generating point. And when a new generating point is added, it has the property of being affected only by the surroundings of the new generating point. That is, the Voronoi polygon corresponding to each generating point changes only in a part of the Voronoi diagram. This property means that when new customers increase in the store, it is necessary to change some of the identification information, and it is considered possible to flexibly cope with customer fluctuations.

  According to the above embodiment, the store customer can use the personal authentication means using biometric information to deposit change into the account and withdraw from the account for the product price. No need to own. In other words, since physical card management is not obligatory, children can use it.

  Moreover, according to this Embodiment, a store does not need to prepare many coins for the change returned to a purchaser. In addition, it is possible to reduce the cost of using the change delivery service for dealing with the shortage of change.

  Furthermore, the process of creating the identification information (Voronoi polygon) from the biological information is irreversible conversion, and the biological information cannot be restored from the identification information. In addition, since the information is valid only in a specific store, threats such as personal information leakage in a store where an unspecified number of people come and go are suppressed (the use value for others is low even if leaked). be able to.

It is a whole lineblock diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a table structure of a database managed by a storage unit 101 of the center system 100. FIG. It is explanatory drawing which shows the table structure of the database which the memory | storage part 115 of the shop system 110 manages. 5 is a flowchart showing a flow of change deposit processing in the store system 110. 5 is a flowchart showing a flow of change payout processing in the store system 110. In the store system 110, it is a flow chart which shows the flow of the process which produces the feature-value from biometric information. FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram and a management table explanatory diagram for explaining processing for creating a Voronoi polygon serving as identification information in the center system 100. FIG.

Explanation of symbols

100 ... Authentication information management center system 110 ... Store system 120 ... Network

Claims (6)

In a service management method using a service management system for managing service information related to services that can be received at a plurality of usage bases,
Accepts authentication information used to authenticate the user of the service;
Converting the authentication information into predetermined identification information corresponding to the service information;
The converted identification information is stored in a storage device for each of the plurality of usage bases,
In response to a change in the service provided or received at any of the plurality of usage bases, the identification information stored corresponding to the usage base is changed according to the content of the change,
A service management method comprising storing the changed identification information in the storage device. The service management method according to claim 1,
Position on the Voronoi diagram which is a plane in which several points are arranged on the plane as the identification information, and can be divided according to which point is closest to the point in the plane A service management method using Voronoi diagram information indicating In a change management system that manages changes for purchases at multiple stores,
Means for inputting biometric information of a purchaser when purchasing a product with cash in any of the plurality of stores;
Means for extracting feature values from the biological information;
Means for associating and registering the characteristic amount with a code corresponding to the change when the purchaser uses the change management system for the first time;
Means for storing change amount data, which is a difference between the payment amount and the purchase amount of the product, in association with the code in a predetermined recording means of the computer;
In the second and subsequent uses, the registered feature quantity 1 is compared with the feature quantity 2 obtained from the means for inputting the biological information, and as a result of the comparison, the difference between the feature quantity 1 and the feature quantity 2 is compared. Means that it is the same person when is within the threshold range;
A change management system comprising: means for adding change amount data generated by a new purchase to amount data stored in a predetermined area of the recording means associated with the feature amount 1. In the change management system according to claim 3,
Further, when the purchaser accepts a request for settlement of the purchase amount using the amount data stored in the recording means at the second and subsequent use, the purchase amount of the product is compared with the purchase amount of the product, (1) A change management system comprising means for subtracting the purchase amount from the amount data when the amount data is greater than the purchase amount, and (2) when the amount data is less than the purchase amount, a means for notifying that the balance is insufficient. In the change management system according to claim 3 or 4,
The change management system includes an information processing center device connected to each other via a network and a store system used in each store,
Means for calculating the feature quantity 1; means for plotting the feature quantity extracted from the biometric information of the customer of the designated store as a point on a two-dimensional plane; and A means for creating Voronoi diagram information 1 which shows a Voronoi diagram using a plurality of plotted points and has a feature amount 1 of a set of vertex coordinates of Voronoi polygons constituting the Voronoi diagram, and the Voronoi diagram information 1 in advance Means for sending to the store system of the designated store designated,
The store system to which the Voronoi diagram information 1 is transmitted has two feature quantities 2 obtained from means for recording the feature quantity 1 as a feature quantity for identifying a customer and means for inputting biometric information. Plotting as a point on a dimensional plane and specifying a Voronoi polygon that contains the point, and having means for executing identity authentication by specifying the amount data associated with feature amount 1 Change management system. In the change management system according to claim 5,
The account storing the amount data can be associated with a plurality of Voronoi polygons, and when the feature amount of the customer 2 who is the family of the customer 1 who stored the amount data is input, means for identifying the customer 2 And a change management system characterized by having means for specifying the same account as customer 1 associated with customer 2 and permitting access to a recording means for recording the amount data of customer 1.

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